


Play That Funky Music

by TardisIsTheOnlyWayToTravel



Category: Doctor Who (2005)
Genre: AU, Crack, M/M, archiving old fic, covers face with embarrassment because old fic is old okay
Language: English
Status: Completed
Published: 2008-05-09
Updated: 2008-05-09
Packaged: 2017-12-10 21:25:12
Rating: Teen And Up Audiences
Warnings: Creator Chose Not To Use Archive Warnings
Chapters: 1
Words: 2,363
Publisher: archiveofourown.org
Story URL: https://archiveofourown.org/works/790324
Author URL: https://archiveofourown.org/users/TardisIsTheOnlyWayToTravel/pseuds/TardisIsTheOnlyWayToTravel
Summary: <blockquote class="userstuff">
              <p>The Doctor finds himself sharing a cell with the Master (and the Master's iPod). It goes downhill from there.</p>
            </blockquote>





	Play That Funky Music

**Author's Note:**

> Set sometime after series three, ignores series four.
> 
> Also, I apparently predicted the ridiculous hats. Heh.

It wasn't the throbbing ache in his head that woke the Doctor, the discomfort of lying on a hard floor, or the awareness that something was wrong.

It was the noise.

At first the Doctor was vaguely aware only of irritating, energetic music, but slowly words began to penetrate his consciousness.

" _And the man at the back said 'everyone attack' and it turned into a ballroom blitz. And the girl in the corner said 'boy I gotta warn ya, it'll turn into a ballroom blitz.' Ballroom blitz, ballroom blitz…"_

There was a light baritone voice singling along, a voice that was rather familiar, somehow.

The Doctor opened his eyes and wincing, sat up to look around.

He was sitting in a cell, all sterile white with an airlocked security door and a grille set in the ceiling for ventilation. Both the music and the singing came from the man sitting up against the wall opposite, holding an iPod connected to a small portable speaker.

"It's you!" the Doctor exclaimed in disbelief.

"Oh, excellent deduction, Sherlock," the Master retorted, "before you know it you'll be smoking a pipe and wearing idiotic hats. Although given your sartorial taste I suppose the hats should come as no surprise."

"But you're dead!" the Doctor protested.

The Master smirked and waggled the fingers of one hand at him.

"Really, Doctor, I knew you were thick, but I should have thought that even _you_ would have recognised a biosignature storage device when you saw one. Or have you managed to lose even your ability to _read_ since you left the Academy?"

The Doctor could have hit himself for missing it; the large clunky ring on the Master's finger, now he bothered to look at it properly, was engraved with a pattern of overlapping circles that formed a symbol that was instantly recognisable.

The Master was still smirking at him.

"I wasn't looking at your ring," the Doctor said, annoyed, "I had other things on my mind at the time."

"Oh, did you miss me, Doctor?" the Master cooed. "Did you cry your little eyes out over my dead body? I bet you did. How touching."

Really, the Doctor thought, the Master grew more insufferable every time he saw him. The Doctor always wanted to hit him.

"I seem to recall you trying to save my life a couple of times," the Doctor remarked. "Like the time Borusa decided to pull all my incarnations out of their proper place in the time stream and dump them in the Death Zone." He grinned at the memory. "I stole your teleport."

The Master glared at him.

"I was only trying to reach Rassilon's tomb and thought you might be useful somehow," he snapped.

The Doctor grinned even more.

"Of course you were." He frowned as _'Star Trekkin'_ began to play. "You know, I should have known it was you, you have the worst taste in music of anyone I've ever met."

The Master just grinned evilly.

"You're just jealous that I have an iPod and you don't."

Since, in fact, there was some truth to this, the Doctor ignored him, sitting back to try and remember how he'd ended up in a prison cell. He'd landed on Belarius III, he recalled (trying to tune out the high voices singing about Klingons on the starboard bow), to visit the market-city of Antrinin. It had been a few regenerations since he'd last taken a look around, and he'd always been fascinated by the eclectic bits and pieces that ended up for sale.

Everything had gone fine until he'd seen the statue.

It was sitting on a plinth, in one of the squares, carved in smooth stone. The Doctor had simply stared up at it for a moment, completely thunderstruck to find such a thing in such a place.

Then he'd gone nuts.

Law enforcement officers had arrived to find him kicking and clawing at the unyielding stone, screaming jangling, discordant syllables none of them understood. They'd had to sedate him in the end, after he punched one of the officers trying to pull him away.

Something of the Doctor's feelings must have shown on his face, because the Master asked gleefully,

"What did you do this time?"

"What did _you_ do?" the Doctor retorted. "Try to conquer the planet? Create some machine of mass destruction? Assassinate someone of vital importance?"

"Committed blatant vandalism," the Master replied cheerfully.

"Right," the Doctor scowled, "now leave me alone, I want to see if there's some way we can get out."

"You won't find one," the Master told him, but resumed singing along to his iPod, watching with amusement as the Doctor embarked upon what he knew would be a fruitless search.

* * *

The Doctor prowled around his cell with his sonic screwdriver. He tried to remove the grate in the ceiling, but it wouldn't budge.

" _We are running to the railroad track, run along with Captain Jack. Badideido, badideido…"_

The Doctor tried the cell door next, cycling through several settings on the sonic screwdriver, but to no avail. There was no indication of a secret door anywhere, either, but he checked the cell for one anyway.

" _An invisible man sleeping in your bed – oh! who you gonna call?..."_

When the Master began singing along to the chorus of _'Play That Funky Music,'_ complete with matching high-pitched nasal voice, the Doctor lost it.

"Will you turn that off?" he snapped, whirling on the Master who was in the middle of performing a disco move. "Do you actually put the most irritating songs you can think of in that thing?"

The Master gave him a devil-may-care grin.

"Of course I do, Doctor."

The Doctor yelled all kinds of things at him then, but the Master just stood there smirking at him.

When he started humming along to the next track, the Doctor snapped completely.

"Will you stop it!" he demanded, grabbing the Master by the shoulders and shaking him.

This proved to be the wrong thing to do. However amused by the Doctor's display of temper the Master might be, he never reacted well to being manhandled. A flash of anger lit up his eyes and he removed the Doctor's hands and pushing him backwards, slammed the Doctor up against the wall.

Keep your hands to yourself, Doctor," the Master hissed.

The Doctor poked him aggressively in reply. It all went downhill from there.

* * *

For the next few minutes the two men rolled around on the floor, kicking, clawing, punching and even hair-pulling.

Some time after that they both lay on the floor, staring at the ceiling and recovering from their brief but intense brawl.

"You've completely ruined this tie," the Doctor said into the silence. The Master had tried to strangle him with it.

"And you've completely crumpled my suit," the Master responded.

They stayed there quietly breathing for a little while longer, then the Master remarked, "well, that was fun," in his usual cheerful voice.

The Doctor thought of swatting him, but it would have taken too much energy and besides, he didn't want to start the fight again.

The Master rolled onto his side and propped his head up on one hand, looking at the Doctor.

"I think you've been bottling things up a bit, haven't you?" he grinned.

The Doctor didn't answer. The Master frowned, and the next moment the Doctor found the Master's face hovering just above his own.

"What do you want now?" the Doctor demanded, annoyed at this intrusion into his personal space.

The Master's expression changed; his eyes gleamed suddenly and the corners of his mouth turned up in a little smile.

"What?" the Doctor was suspicious of this new expression.

The Master leaned over and kissed him.

Taken by surprise, the Doctor let his mouth fall open a little and felt strong fingers tangle in his hair.

A moment later the Master pulled away, leaving the Doctor bewildered.

"What was that for?" he asked.

The Master shrugged, lips quirking into a small smile again.

"I felt like it."

"Oh."

They sat in silence, the Doctor trying to puzzle it out, the Master looking smug.

"I still loathe you, though," the Master warned, after some minutes of watching the Doctor's confused expression in satisfaction.

"Right," the Doctor agreed, still baffled. "Got it."

* * *

The Master reached for his iPod, which diverted the Doctor's attention. The speaker cord had been accidentally pulled out at some point during the fight, so there had been blessed silence.

"Oh no, not _again!_ " the Doctor exclaimed, at the end of his tether.

At this opportune moment the cell door slid open. Behind it stood several men in unfamiliar uniforms.

"The Governor wishes to see you both," said the leader.

"Ooh, the Governor!" the Master was apparently delighted by this development. "We're persons of importance, Doctor."

"Don't antagonise them!" the Doctor hissed. He felt it necessary to add to the men in uniforms, "I'm not actually with him, just so you know, it's just we went to school together."

" _Just?_ " the Master mourned, apparently hurt, but his eyes gleaming with mischief. "What about all those sunny days and sleepless nights we spent going off on our own to –"

"So, the Governor!" the Doctor said loudly, "Excellent, I'm all for a visit to the Governor. Let's go."

* * *

The two Time Lords were escorted through the building to a large chamber.

A steely-eyed woman with coppery hair and frowned at them.

"Perhaps you would care to explain why two members of the same species tried to damage the same ancient, priceless monument in one afternoon?"

The Master grinned sideways at the Doctor, eyes filled with mirth.

"So you found the Rassilon statue as well," he said under his breath.

"Well?" the Governor demanded sharply.

The Doctor closed his eyes for a moment, pained, then opened them.

"Well, the thing is, that particular statue," he explained, not really wanting to do so at all, "Happens to be of a, historical personage familiar to both of us."

"Lord Rassilon," the Master added helpfully, for once.

"He was regarded as the founder of modern civilisation on our planet… which no longer exists."

"Only because you blew it up." The Master was back to being unhelpful.

"I did not blow it up!" the Doctor snapped. "There was a war, thank you very much, and we took the only measures we could to prevent the Daleks conquering the universe, which you would know if you hadn't taken off like a coward to the end of the universe!"

"I'd also be dead," the Master pointed out.

" _Ahem._ "

The Doctor remembered the Governor and turned back to keep explaining.

"There's nothing left of our planet or its people apart from the two of us. To see a statue of Rassilon of all things, here, gave me a bit of a shock."

"It would," the Master snorted. "Let me guess, you made some big dramatic production out of it."

The Doctor glared at him.

" _You_ did something to it."

The Master grinned.

"I," the Master said smugly, "drew a moustache."

" _You drew a moustache on Lord Rassilon!?_ "

"A _statue_ of Lord Rassilon, Doctor," the Master corrected, who is dead, just like the rest of the planet."

"But it's Lord Rassilon!" The Doctor was somewhere between scandalised and horrified.

"I'm glad to see your grasp of the obvious has not decayed," the Master said.

" _AHEM_."

The two Time Lords turned to the Governor inquiringly.

"Perhaps you could be so kind as to cease forgetting my presence and actually finish your explanation?" she asked acerbically.

The Doctor blinked. Romana had said almost exactly the same thing to him once, and in more or less the same tone. She'd gotten rather testy after she became President, really.

"The truth is we're both mad. The best thing to do is let us both go, order us off the planet and never let us back. Otherwise we'll just be nuisances," the Master advised cheerfully.

"That's suspiciously honest of you," the Doctor muttered. "And I am not a nuisance."

"The fact that I preferred death to sharing a TARDIS with you, no matter how fun it might be to drive you out of your pathetic mind ought to tell you something," said the Master. "And right now I'd do just about anything to get away from this planet and your irritating presence."

"ENOUGH!" the Governor bellowed. "Anything to get you out of my hair! You are henceforth banned from Belarius III, and you should be off-planet within twelve hours if you don't want charges laid against you!"

The Master smirked at the Doctor, nonverbally pointing out that his plan of blunt honesty had worked.

The Doctor scowled at him.

* * *

The Governor's staff left them on the street outside the council buildings.

"So, what now, Doctor?" the Master asked casually, looking out at a bunch of people across the street. "Going to lock me up in the TARDIS for the good of the universe?"

It was the Master's calm tone that got to the Doctor. He spoke in a matter-of-fact voice, as though they were no more well-acquainted than a lawbreaker and jailer, as though they hadn't grown up together and known each other better than anyone else in the universe.

"If I let you loose you'd cause nothing but chaos and destruction," the Doctor said quietly. "I know you. I wish I could trust you not to, believe me, but I can't."

"You pathetic sap," the Master sneered.

The Doctor grinned softly.

"I know."

It was at this point that the Master suddenly hit him without any warning. The Doctor wasn't expecting it and was sent tumbling backwards. By the time he picked himself up, the Master was nowhere in sight.

The Doctor stared indignantly for a moment.

Then he grinned ruefully.

"You always did cheat, Koschei," he muttered, and began the walk back to the TARDIS.

He was, of course, oblivious to the fact that the Master had taken advantage of the opportunity not only to escape, but to squirt blue dye in his hair until he next looked in a mirror.

His exclamation of horror would no doubt have pleased the Master immensely.

**Author's Note:**

> The Master tried to save the Doctor's life in "The Five Doctors," with the reasoning that the universe without the Doctor would be a sad thing, presumably because he'd have no one to gloat to at the end of series three. The Doctor told him to sod off.
> 
> The songs played by the Master are, in order:
> 
> "Ballroom Blitz," The Sweet
> 
> "Star Trekkin'," Firm
> 
> "Captain Jack," Captain Jack
> 
> "Ghostbusters," Ray Parker Jr.
> 
> Play That Funky Music," Wild Cherry
> 
> And the humming that sent the Doctor over the edge was to "I Never Liked You," by Rogue Traders.


End file.
